The Values of War and Peace in Africa

Africa, like every other continent in the world, has unique problems that require special diagnosis as well as a unique socio-cultural and political landscape that distinctly impacts the peace and security environment. With the transformation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) into the African Union (AU) in 2002, new objectives under the new framework emphasized the need to define and find African-centred solutions for peace and security in the continent. While the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) is already operational, there is an emerging need for the AU to focus more on the interface between peace, security and governance. This makes the search for African-centred solutions in peace and security more complex and broad since the solutions have to include elements of governance, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

˜The œjournal of leadership and developing societies, 2023

by accounting for more than half of the continent's active state-based conflicts. The attendant insecurities and instabilities continue to make the continent a key theatre of peace initiatives by the international peace and aid community working directly or indirectly through their local collaborating actors. In essence, intra-state conflicts are triggered and driven by relational issues of the locale. According to Dürrschmidt, the locale is a "medium for 'time and space distinction', characterised by the intersection of presence and absence… to new forms of This paper argues that a systematic understanding of local populations and their worldviews of what constitute peace -as expressed in their norms of relations holds promise for the future of peace in Africa. Africa continues to be the centre of international efforts at peacebuilding. These efforts at best have achieved mixed results, while barely addressing the root causes of violent conflicts by transforming state-society relations that fosters inclusivity and assures the progress of the collective regardless of geographic, social, economic, and political differentiations. To achieve this, it is important for actors in the peacebuilding industry to emphasise the local as fundamental to building durable peace. This stems from the knowledge that all societies embody the idea of peace with different connotations. Such worldviews are important starting points for post-conflict peacebuilding efforts that portends for the collective good. In this article, the Bimbilla case shows how local spaces that have suffered violent conflicts have inbuilt ideational and normative structures that can be used to address the anomaly of state-society relations. This is indicative of the many conflict and post-conflict spots in Africa. Emphasising the norms of the locale as a critically anchor to effective contemporary peacebuilding, and the future of durable peace in Africa.

International Journal: Canada's Journal of Global Policy Analysis, 2012

African Journal on Conflict Resolution, 2010

Many interpretations of peace and conflict in Africa are too simplistic. The book under review, therefore, seeks to deviate from those interpretations and provide a more detailed perspective. A collection of essays edited by David J. Francis, the book is touted as an introduction text to key themes with regard to peace and conflict in Africa. The book aims, firstly, to introduce the reader to the concepts, debates and issues in peace and conflict in Africa, and, secondly, to stress the importance of indigenous African approaches to peacebuilding. Thus, the book is divided into two parts. The first part has seven chapters and deals mostly with concepts and the discourse of peace and conflict in Africa. Part two has five chapters and deals with issues in peace and conflict. The first chapter is an introduction to the context of peace and conflict. The author presents an overview of the western media's representation of Africa, reviews selected literature on conflicts, and appreciates Africa's potential and brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk

2013

After more than two decades of experimentation with the neoliberal political and economic system, Africa continues to grapple with the complications inherent in the statebuilding process. Constricted democracy in some countries, poverty and depri vation in others, weak institutions and oftentimes stifled political space have all con tributed to exacerbating the monumental human security challenges on the continent. Attempts to tackle these maladies through the creation of institutions at the re gional, subregional, and national levels do not seem to deliver the goods fast enough for Africans to escape the cycles of poverty, joblessness, and deprivation so preponder ant in the twentyfirst century. Embracing democracy with a focus on one of the key elements, elections, has in some cases resulted in pseudodemocratic systems and in others genuine democratic rebirth. In the case of the former, the more dominant situ ation, the African citizenry appears to have been hoodwinked into playing the willing participant in the enthronement of selfserving political elites. In spite of the gloomy nature of the statebuilding contradictions faced by Africa, the glorifying story remains the unprecedented economic growth experienced by the continent, averaging approximately 5 percent despite the recent economic recession in the developed countries. This economic growth has not, however, translated into job creation for a region with an extremely high youth population. As a consequence, most African countries will not achieve the Millennium Development Goals' target of poverty eradication. Another cause for concern is that this employment deficit has already sparked revolts in the northern part of the continent. Thus, as Africa embraces another time-bound vision, 2063, the implications of this African paradox are sure to have monumental implications for peace, conflict, gover nance, and security. There are bound to be increasing demands for accountability among state officials, jobs for youths, clean government, and policies to reduce the huge gap between the haves and the havenots. The articles in this issue of the Africa Peace and Conflict Journal are contributions to the assertion that the challenges of peace, governance, and security in Africa are also an intellectual challenge. In them, African scholars incisively diagnose some of the conti nent's challenges and proffer ideas that might help in addressing some of the problems. Their ideas cover three clusters of issues: the ideas, aspirations, and ambitions that animate the state of democratic governance in Africa; the processes and challenges through which these ideas, ambitions, and aspirations can be realized, and the different dimensions and trajectories of peace, governance, and security at the regional, subre gional, and state levels.

Journal of Pan African Studies, 2008

Czech Journal of International Relations

This handbook offers a critical assessment of the African agenda for conflict prevention, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding; the challenges and opportunities facing Africa’s regional organisations in their efforts towards building sustainable peace on the continent; and the role of external actors, including the United Nations, Britain, France, and South Asian troop-contributing countries. In so doing, it revisits the late Ali Mazrui’s concept of Pax Africana, calling on Africans to take responsibility for peace and security on their own continent. The creation of the African Union, in 2002, was an important step towards realising this ambition, and has led to the development of a new continental architecture for more robust conflict management. But, as the volume’s authors show, the quest for Pax Africana faces challenges. Combining thematic analyses and case studies, this book will be of interest to both scholars and policymakers working on peace, security, and governan...

published in: The African Union Ten Years After: Solving African Problems with Pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance. Muchie, M. Lukhele-Olorunju, P. and Akpor, O. (eds.). , 2013

For decades, African leaders and scholars alike have expressed concerns over foreign intervention in the internal affairs of African countries. They have decried humanitarian intervention as a neo-colonialist agenda propelled by self-interest, condemned world judicial bodies such as the international criminal court for unfairly targeting African leaders and at the same time, watched seemingly helplessly, as atrocities such as the genocide in Rwanda are perpetrated, with apparent nonchalance from the international community. It is amidst these realities and verities of African politics that the paradigm of ‘African solutions to African problems’ was born. It was in acknowledgement of the hypothesis that the solutions provided by the West for over 200 years of domination, have not worked and that African peoples should play a leading role in addressing the challenges facing the continent. This paper questions the feasibility of ‘African solutions to African problems.’ It explores some shortcomings of this paradigm within the context of conflict management and resolution, given the continent’s status quo. Among the challenges identified are: inadequate capacity and political will to address conflict, absence of a hegemonic power, disrespect for national constitutions and disunity. The paper recommends that there is a need for African states to capacitate and empower institutions such as the African Union to address conflict; a need for powerful states such as South Africa to play a more practical role on the continent; and also the need for African leaders to involve the international community in conflict resolution mechanisms on the continent.

Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 2018